How dumb are we?

Well, the regular season ended. That means I can go back to THT’s preseason predictions and see how well we did. And by “well” I mean “terrible.” Unless I mean “terribly.” It’s late and I’m too tired to care about grammar that much. The key part is that I’m most certainly including myself among the idiot brigade. After all, I made the following predictions:

– Indians would win their division.

– Ditto Diamondbacks.

– Tritto Mets.

– The Tigers would finish in last.

Whoops! How did I do against the rest? I’m afraid to look, but what the hell. Here’s how I’ll score our regular season predictions: if the difference between predicted rank and actual rank is one, that’s worth one point. If it’s off by four, that’s four points. Getting it head on is worth zero points. The goal is to get as few points as possible. (There was only one tie in the final standings: the Indians and Royals. Both will be considered coming in four and a half-th place.

My secret was the AL East, which I nailed perfectly. Actually, that wasn’t much of a trick – Sal B., John Beamer, Harry Pavlidis, Boss Studenman, and Bryan Tsao also got it perfectly. In comparison, no one perfectly forecast the finish of the AL Central, NL Central, NL East, or NL West. One – count ‘im, ONE – person got the AL West right: take a bow, Evan Brunell.

In the other divisions, here were the best performances: scoring only two points total for the entire 6-team NL Central were Lisa Gray, Michael Lerra, John Walsh, John Barten, Craig Brown, Boss Studenman, David Gassko, Brandon Isleib, and myself. We all made same mistake: transposing the Cubs and Cards.

The only other divisional score of 2 came from the NL East, where Lisa Gray achieved that feat. The got the Phillies, Marlins, and Nationals right, but put the Mets and Braves in each others’ slots.

The best score in the NL West came from Michael Lerra at 4. He was two off on both the Giants and D-backs.

Our toughest division was the AL Central. The best score there was Bryan Tsao’s 5. He got the Twins and Sox right, but was badly off on the Tigers and Indians. (The tie ensures no one could’ve gotten a perfect score in this division).

Best full league scores: Bryan Tsao had 9 in the AL, and Lisa Gray scored 10 in the NL.

That was the good. As for the bad. .. It would be too time consuming to name all the guys tied for worst scores in each division. The key point is “tied” because many divisions had almost half the field tied with the same mark and no one doing worst. I’ll just look for the worst job predicting any single division. This would be a score of 10, which occurred in both the NL East and AL Central. The following did it in the NL East: Sal Baxamusa, Paul Singman, and Marco Fujimoto. In the AL Central: Boss Studeman, Evan Brunell, Harry Pavildis, John Barten, and Johnathan Halket. Last – and least, Colin Wyers scored 10 points in both divisions.

Worst scores by league: AL: John Barten – 22. In the NL the worst score was also 22: Paul Singman and Sal Baxamusa tied.

But wait! – There’s more!
How’d we do in picking postseason-bound teams? Well, absolutely none of us saw the Rockies making it and virtually no one picked the Cards, but Craig Brown and Bryan Tsao got six right. At the other end, Matthew Carruth and John Barten only named 2. (Would it be cruel to note that by random guessing you’d be expected to name 2 out of 8?)

Finally, the following people could still theoretically get their predicted World Series matchups: Dan Turkenkopf. That’s it. He predicted the Yankees and Dodgers would face off. Way too many people picked the Cubs in the NL. Me? I had Arizona capturing the NL flag.